The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter Page A

forehead, to the space between the eyebrows, like the caste mark of a brahmin woman. Or the mark of Cain. And now the key gleamed as freshly as if it had just been cut. He clipped it back on the ring, emitting that same, heavy sigh as he had done when I said that I would marry him.
     
    'My virgin of the arpeggios, prepare yourself for martyrdom.'
     
    'What form shall it take?' I said.
     
    'Decapitation,' he whispered, almost voluptuously. 'Go and bathe yourself; put on that white dress you wore to hear Tristan and the necklace that prefigures your end. And I shall take myself off to the armoury, my dear, to sharpen my great-grandfather's ceremonial sword.'
     
    'The servants?'
     
    'We shall have absolute privacy for our last rites; I have already dismissed them. If you look out of the window you can see them going to the mainland.'
     
    It was now the full, pale light of morning; the weather was grey, indeterminate, the sea had an oily, sinister look, a gloomy day on which to die. Along the causeway I could see trouping every maid and scullion, every pot-boy and pan- scourer , valet, laundress and vassal who worked in that great house, most on foot, a few on bicycles. The faceless housekeeper trudged along with a great basket in which, I guessed, she'd stowed as much as she could ransack from the larder. The Marquis must have given the chauffeur leave to borrow the motor for the day, for it went last of all, at a stately pace, as though the procession were a cortege and the car already bore my coffin to the mainland for. burial .
     
    But I knew no good Breton earth would cover me, like a last, faithful lover; I had another fate.
     
    'I have given them all a day's holiday, to celebrate our wedding,' he said. And smiled.
     
    However hard I stared at the receding company, I could see no sign of Jean-Yves, our latest servant, hired but the preceding morning.
     
    'Go, now. Bathe yourself; dress yourself. The lustratory ritual and the ceremonial robing ; after that, the sacrifice. Wait in the music room until I telephone for you. No, my dear!' And he smiled, as I started, recalling the line was dead.' One may call inside the castle just as much as one pleases; but, outside--never.'
     
    I scrubbed my forehead with the nail brush as I had scrubbed the key but this red mark would not go away, either, no matter what I did, and I knew I should wear it until I died, though that would not be long. Then I went to my dressing room and put on that white muslin shift, costume of a victim of an auto- da - fé , he had bought me to listen to the Liebestod in. Twelve young women combed out twelve listless sheaves of brown hair in the mirrors; soon, there would be none. The mass of lilies that surrounded me exhaled, now, the odour of their withering. They looked like the trumpets of the angels of death.
     
    On the dressing table, coiled like a snake about to strike, lay the ruby choker.
     
    Already almost lifeless, cold at heart, I descended the spiral staircase to the music room but there I found I had not been abandoned.
     
    'I can be of some comfort to you,' the boy said.' Though not much use.'
     
    We pushed the piano stool in front of the open window so that, for as long as I could, I would be able to smell the ancient, reconciling smell of the sea that, in time, will cleanse everything, scour the old bones white, wash away all the stains. The last little chambermaid had trotted along the causeway long ago and now the tide, fated as I, came tumbling in, the crisp wavelets splashing on the old stones.
     
    'You do not deserve this,' he said.
     
    'Who can say what I deserve or no?' I said. 'I've done nothing; but that may be sufficient reason for condemning me.'
     
    'You disobeyed him,' he said. 'That is sufficient reason for him to punish you.'
     
    'I only did what he knew I would.'
     
    'Like Eve,' he said.
     
    The telephone rang a shrill imperative. Let it ring. But my lover lifted me up and set me on my feet; I knew I must